I knew I wanted the letters to stand out more then just adding paper stripes inside, so I taught myself the beehive method of quilling and filled the letters.

Quilled Iqra by A Crafty Arab

Quilled Iqra by A Crafty Arab

I almost made it to the end before I started to second guess myself. I tried the peach color strip instead of continuing with the beige beehive filling. But after I placed the canvas across the room for perspective, and asked some online advice, I decided to stick with my original concept drawing that I had planned. Goes to show that you need to be open to other ideas along the process!

Quilled Iqra by A Crafty Arab

Once all the biege beehive quilling stripes had been filled, including the tiny, itsy, bitsy, ones below the first alif, I started filling in the outside design, including adding tight coils to the ends of the scrolled quilling strips.